In the Time of War & Master of the Road to Nowhere

Cover art by Ed Emshwiller. Introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin.

In this double-header collection featuring the very best of Carol Emshwiller – with one half of the book featuring stories set in times of relative peace and the other half in war – the author demonstrates hos, in the words of the Philadelphia Enquirer, she "has never lost her capacity to surprise".

In In the Time of War and Other Stories of Conflict: Soldiers go off to burn the library and the books of the enemy; a general saves a little girl; a woman steals a wounded imprisoned general of the enemy to work in her fields; and a doctor doesn't remember what side he's on but helps the wounded anyway. "Looking back at my anti-war stories," the author says, "I can see that I always want to have a character from one side fall in love with a character of the enemy's side."

In Master of the Road to Nowhere and Other Tales of the Fantastic: Aliens try to take over the world through our dogs; a woman frightened of witches becomes one; a girl finds a god in a cave; a perfectly normal boy is displayed in a cave; half-alien half-human children are hidden and brought up in the mountains; a group of nomads try to live among us, secretly, and keep their old ways; and a woman forgets who she is.